The Joker's Worst Fear
by ricreaper
Summary: The Joker's minions are talking amongst themselves until he gets back, only to be confronted by his worst fear...


**A/N The Joker's worst fear. Enjoy! Oh yeah, and I don't own Batman, or the Dark Knight, or the Joker etc**

The Joker's minions were bored. Very bored. Of course, being the Joker's minions and all, they couldn't do very much unless the Joker himself was around to direct them. Which he was not. He had been out for a while, probably tormenting the citizens of Gotham, as well as Jim Gordon and the Batman. Which was good for the minions, because Batman didn't have the time to kick the crap out of them. Yet the minions were still bored. So very bored. Even the spider on the wall was bored – and it was a bug, for crying out loud.

" God, I'm so _bored_!" said minion number one, who was called John. "Whaddya say to leavin' this craphole an' robbin' a bank, or sumthin' like that?" Clearly he was not the smartest minion. "I mean, the boss can't know where we've gone if we leave before he's back, can he?" Again, not the smartest minion. The other minions agreed with this.

"Are you friggin' _insane_?" exclaimed the other four. "Do you know what the Joker would do to us if he found out that we had ditched him, you moron?" It may seem strange that they said this in unison, but it was pretty obvious in the first place.

"The boss has _ways_, man," said one minion, who's name was Jacob. "He's got eyes _everywhere,_ man – he'll find us in no time, man, and kill us with a weed hacker, man!" Every other man in the room could see that Jacob was glistening with sweat – so much, in fact, that anyone else would have thought he had just gone swimming.

"A weed hacker?" said another minion, called Jingle (He liked Christmas, okay?).

"Yeah, man!"

"But, _come on!_" John yelled. "There are five of us, an' one of 'im! We should 'ave 'im runnin' scared!" He looked shocked that no-one in the room was agreeing with his…_brilliant_…reasoning. Well, he tried to look shocked, but ended up looking more stupid than usual. If that was possible.

" Ze boss is not scared of anyzing, you stupid American fool!" Heimer and Schmitt, the German twins, retorted in unison. These too were probably the smartest of the lot – and the most sane. In fact, the only reason they went to Arkham was because they said everything at the exact same time. This, while annoying beyond reason, was not a sign of insanity. "He vould face a bear wizout even blinking!" While they screamed this to the high heavens, they lifted their hands to the ceiling as though they were praising God. (Okay, so they're not as sane as they let on). Jingle couldn't help but laugh at their passionate yells that echoed around the dimly lit room. They were so loud, they even stirred the spider into moving from its current spot to it's intricately woven web in the corner of the room.

Now that Heimer and Schmitt were sufficiently put down by Jingle's roars of laughter, and the spider had returned to its original spot, Jacob finally spoke:

"The only reason we're still _alive,_ man, is 'cos the boss loves our names so much!" It was true. While they were on there way to kidnap an important political figure, or fire rockets at police cars, the Joker loved singing at the top of his voice: "John, Jacob, Jingle, Heimer, Schmitt – na-na-na-na-na-na-na!" Which so happened to be their names. It really was a hilarious coincidence – one which the Joker exploited over and over again, much to the minions chagrin.

The minions all raised their heads to the sound of a door slamming, followed quickly by the sounds of irregularly paced footsteps climbing the stairs. The Joker was back. Apparently, the police had not captured him. Like they'd even come close.

"Boys! I'm _home_!" The Joker called out from the stairs, his gravelly yet high-pitched voice filling the entire room. Four of the minions recoiled and shuddered. John, however, was a moron, so he didn't. Instead, he thought it a good idea to exhale incredibly loudly and say in an exasperated voice,

"Finally! That son-of-a-bitch took forever!" Oh, John.

"Does this idiot have a death wish," whispered Jingle into Jacob's ear, "or is he mentally retarded? I mean, seriously!" What exactly Jacob thought the answer to this question was, we'll never know. Because at that moment, the Joker himself crashed into the room, drawing himself up to his full height.

Four of the minions immediately focused their full attention on the man in front of them, putting their legs together and their arms at their sides (Guess who didn't), almost as though the Joker was an army sergeant conducting an inspection. They waited with baited breath. They had almost forgotten how horrible he looked. Those ugly scars. Those yellow teeth. That disgusting greasepaint. His dirty, green hair. If they didn't fear for their lives they would have covered their eyes and stumbled back in horror. But they didn't. Not even John. Who was only alive right now because the Joker had chosen to ignore his earlier statement.

"Right, boys," the Joker said in an authoritative voice that struck even more fear into the hearts of the five men before him. "You'd better get your stuff together…we're goin' for a ride." By stuff, he meant, of course, guns and explosives.

"Where we goin'?" John dared to ask.

" It's…a surprise, okay?" the Joker said without so much as glancing at John. " Anyone else got a _question, _hm?" His tone made it clear that whoever asked a question would be immediately killed. So no-one asked a question. Not even John.

"Alright! Then lets g – HOLY SHIT! WHAT IS THAT?!" The Joker's sudden scream of fear made everyone in the room jump – Jacob had fallen to the ground, clutching his heart (Not literally – just the left side of his chest). Once they got over their state of discombobulation, they saw that the Joker was shaking. _Shaking._ As well as pointing at the wall behind them. They turned to look at said wall. At first they saw nothing.

"What you talking about, boss?' Jingle asked, confusion evident on his face. The Joker looked at him incredulously.

" What do you mean, what am I talking about? Look at that!" He screamed, pointing at the wall, his finger shaking. _Shaking._ The five minions turned. And they saw what the Joker was pointing at. The spider on the wall. The Joker was hyperventilating now. It was probably the only time in history that five people blinked at the same time. An awkward silence had descended upon the group, broken only by the Joker's heavy breathing. Then –

" Wha'? You mean the spider?" John asked incredulously. He went over to the spider and looked closely at it. " Looks 'armless to me, boss." He turned back to the Joker, who's eyes were still wide with terror. "See?" He illustrated his point by reaching down and allowing the spider to climb onto his hand. It did so immediately – probably because they had the same IQ, or something like that. He showed the spider to the psychopath, who stumbled back in terror, his back hitting the door.

"_That_ is NOT harmless!" the Joker yelled, and, in a flash, he grabbed the nearest weapon – a shotgun, which sat harmlessly in the corner – and shot the spider. The unfortunate creature was instantly disintegrated. And because of where the spider was at the time, so was John's hand. It took a moment for the shock of having his hand blown off and shrapnel embedded in his arm to subside.

"!!!!!!!" His scream was so loud it had multiple exclamation points. Everyone else covered their ears to try and block out the high pitched wail. John collapsed to the floor, sobbing, his arm completely covered in blood, blood pumping out of the stump, forming a large pool on the floor. It was not long before he was unconscious due to blood loss. All the others (apart from Jingle and the Joker) shrunk back at the sight of the gore. The Joker exhaled loudly in relief, whereas Jingle asked, giggling like a small girl,

"You afraid of spiders, boss?" As you've probably guessed, this was the worst possible response to the Joker's brief moment of terror. The Joker growled in anger, reminding the others of a large dog that had just caught sight of a cat. He wasted no time in whipping out a switchblade, stabbing Jingle in the back, and throwing him out of a nearby window before the latter could realise how retarded he really was.

A few days later, Jacob made the mistake of coughing conspicuously when he saw a small spider on a table. The Joker naturally took this as an insult, and responded by drilling a bullet between Jacob's eyes. The former was so pissed that he didn't even use a gun. Heimer and Schmitt were smart enough not to tempt fate, and simply squished every spider that they saw so the Joker wouldn't start killing them too. Unfortunately, this was all in vain, as they were both killed by the Joker in an elaborate scheme to kill a few more cops and aggravate the Batman - which involved blowing them both to smithereens.

Shame.

**A/N Hope you enjoyed reading another story where the Joker massacres his minions.** **Read and Review, if you will.**


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